Sunday, October 26, 2008

"If you don't know an f-stop from a white balance, a digital camera that has lots of modes and manual settings will generally be overkill for your needs, as well as being higher in price and more difficult to use."

It just hit me. They are right. I barely know about f-stop, white balance, shutter speed etc. I read all of them on camera reviews and photography sites yet I don't fully understand them. And here I am thinking of getting Canon PowerShot S3 IS or something like that. Maybe I should just be getting a point-and-shoot camera and move on from there.

Saturday, October 25, 2008

Apparently the Samsung S850 doesn't have Image Stabilization. According to its website it has Advanced Shake Reduction (ASR) which from my search is not the same as Image Stabilization. But the camera does have some other features I'm looking for.

Friday, October 24, 2008

It takes hundreds of millions of years for the whole galaxy collision to complete. So, it's not like a car accident or anything of the sort. Phew, guess I wouldn't be moving galaxy anytime soon. Because I saw on the History Channel that our Milky Way is actually on a collision course with a smaller galaxy. Since our galaxy is so big and the process is so slow, our solar system is safe, right? Right?!

Apparently galaxy collision or merging galaxies is not uncommon. It was even more common when the universe was smaller and galaxies were closer together.

Well, at least it's new to me. Saw it on Rachael Ray show where she's cooking Power Burger for Donald Trump. The tube looks just like tooth paste tube. Don't use much tomato paste in this part of the world. In fact not even tomato sauce. Love hot and spicy food instead.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

When I first saw this show, I was flipping channels and thought it was too gross to watch so I paid no attention to it. I missed most of the first season. Towards the end of the first season, I saw it again and I stayed on because the host was funny.

So Mike Rowe is basically the reason why I'm hooked on Dirty Jobs. He makes those (obviously) dirty, mundane jobs seem interesting and lively. I'm sure those people who have had the pleasure of having him come over and 'help' them with their jobs will miss him even if at some point they must have been glad he is gone because he's just in the way most of the time :D.

OK, did a little search and found out he used to sing professionally with the Baltimore Opera - always thought he had a distinctive voice.

I saw on TV a few days ago that in Korea, taxis have a device installed that records how fast they are going, whether they are moving and where they stop and for how long they stop. I know it sounds intrusive but the device actually saves a taxi driver that's been wrongly-accused of robbery.

The story goes that two women, from separate occasions, accuse a taxi driver of robbery and positively identified the man from pictures. But the driver maintains that he's innocent and that he was off duty when the incidents happened. Since there should be no one else that drives his taxi, the detective goes on to check the tracking device installed in his taxi and sure enough he was off duty.

The detective goes back to the robbery victims and they maintain that they are not mistaken and they have got the right man. By now, there is another suspect in custody (the real perpetrator) and the police ask the women to take a second look at the police lineup. They are definitely surprised to see the real robber and how similar he looks like the driver they have wrongly accused.

So, the innocent driver is free and gets an apology from the women who put him in jail for a couple of months.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

I've never had a digital camera, my brother does but it's no fun to use his because he's using it for business purposes while I want to use it all the time and experiment on things. I've always loved taking pictures and I can't believe that I haven't bought one digital camera since it's even more easier to delete pictures that I don't want.

Found a buying guide at CNET that answers the question: what kind of digital camera is best for me? According to this guide and from my own intuition since I know what I want, I'm a cross between a 'Serious amateur' and a 'Budget buyer'. I don't need a guide to tell me that I don't have enough money. But the guide is rather useful to find out which features you'll need in a camera when you're looking for one.

Right now, I'm not what is called a serious amateur but I want a camera that does something a little bit more than point-and-shoot, just a tiny bit more.

My checklist is:

AA Batteries

Zoom > 4x

Image Stabilization

Takes good pictures in low lights

MP > 5

SD memory card

Canon PowerShot S3 IS has always been in my mind but with the budget I'm in right now maybe I should consider Canon PowerShot A590 IS which I heard takes good pictures, or something like Samsung S850 which has the features I can work on and the price seems right.

It's been a long time since I last posted, been more than a year. Sort of lost interest in blogging. Well, it's coming back now. Maybe I can discover new things while writing or unwittingly write something useful. Who knows, weird things have happened.

To mark my 'return', I've changed the header of this blog. Just wanted to add a little bit more colour, the old blog looked rather bland. Just would like to mention here that I did it myself :). Well OK I cheated, I use free graphics and add some text to it. So, it was rather simple, no overhauling the code, just added some graphics.

My Old Blog - Something needs to be done.

My New Blog - Gets a mini facelift

I did make another header (below), couldn't decide at first which one to use but decided on the one on my blog right now.